After meetings with Yukon College as well as municipal and first nation governments, territorial officials are set to consult the public on the future of a controversial Porter Creek greenbelt.

In an interview Friday, Eric Magnuson, the territory's community development director, said the government has completed consultations with major independent stakeholders in the greenbelt bordered by the Alaska Highway, Mountainview Drive, the Porter Creek subdivision and Yukon College.

The major stakeholders, Magnuson said, included the Ta'an Kwach'an and Kwanlin Dun first nations, the college and the Whitehorse municipal government.

'We've met with the four primary stakeholders, as we call them. That would be the college, the two first nations and the city. We've heard from the stakeholders what their interest is in the area,' Magnuson said.

'Now that that is completed, we're going to go forward with some public meetings the week of Feb. 27. There will be three meetings that week and we're going to hear what the public thinks.'

Magnuson said public consultations represented the last stakeholder group to be contacted before the matter goes before Premier Dennis Fentie's cabinet to bring resolution to a quagmire which has seen three plans for the same area.

The greenbelt, as pointed out in the legislature by Liberal MLA Pat Duncan late last year, was the subject of three plans. They were a promise of endowment lands to the college, a residential subdivision for the city and environmental protection.

The greenbelt is the same area that sparked the Porter Creek Community Association to petition the city to hold a referendum to spur the city into creating municipal legislation requiring a public vote anytime city planners wanted to change greenbelt zoning designations.

Magnuson said after meeting with the four independent stakeholders, cabinet would have to consider a number of factors when deciding the greenbelt's future.

'We want to remain open, but at the same time we want to communicate to (all) the stakeholders what we are hearing.

'This isn't an end product; it's a work in progress. We're going to do an open house kind of approach to the consultation. We're going to see how we can overlay (stakeholders' wishes).'

Interests forwarded to the YTG, he said, included a desire by the college for endowment lands, a need for a new subdivision by the city and a need to protect a salmon enhancement program being done in the area by the Ta'an.

'This consultation is not going to make a decision whether this goes ahead or whether this doesn't go ahead. It's about whether the land will be available, there's still an OCP amendment process, there's still zoning approval. The city still has to go through those processes,' he said.

College president Sally Webber said this morning while she can't speak for the institution's board of governors, cabinet ministers will likely be hearing some criticisms over the consultation process.

'I can confirm that (Magnuson) and two other officials visited us on Feb. 3,' she said 'I expressed a concern between the difference between what he presented and (a board proposal) presented to the ministers (earlier this year).'

The college would like to use the endowment lands, Webber explained, for a number of things, including expansion, education and commercial purposes.

Mayor Ernie Bourassa said this morning that while he's aware YTG officials and members of the city planning department had been in discussions, there had not been much in the way of communication at the political level.

'We're going to sit back and see what happens as a result of the consultations,' he said.

If passed, the greenbelt referendum, Bourassa added, could affect city planning in the future. However, it would likely have little impact on city plans to develop the greenbelt in question or the city's plans to develop the lower bench in Porter Creek.

'Those areas are already zoned future development,' he said.